Primacy HP's in Winter

[kyto31]

So I got a new 86 a year ago and the dealership told me the tires (Primacy HP's) were all season. I recently found out they are actually summer tires. I was driving all winter with them on. Never drove through snow, but definitely freezing rain and around/slightly below freezing temps. Car was parked in a garage overnight, but still cold. Anyways I never ran into any issues and I'm still driving on them with temps warming up, but should I be concerned about anything? Should I definitely not drive with them next winter?

[Rustyoid]

If you get any snow at all you will not be going anywhere

[kyto31]

Originally Posted by Rustyoid

If you get any snow at all you will not be going anywhere

Yea I was never planning on driving in the snow, but more worried about the integrity of the rubber compound.

[HaXx]

Dunlop wintermaxx
That's what my friend who's a race instructor recommended me. He races audis on frozen lakes in the winter. He says blizzaks are good too, but the dunlop performs 95% as good, but much cheaper.
He works at a track that has 2 McLaren p1's that he drives all the time.
So i trust him and you should too.

[tobin]

Originally Posted by HaXx

Dunlop wintermaxx
That's what my friend who's a race instructor recommended me. He races audis on frozen lakes in the winter. He says blizzaks are good too, but the dunlop performs 95% as good, but much cheaper.
He works at a track that has 2 McLaren p1's that he drives all the time.
So i trust him and you should too.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com

[Leonardo]

[churchx]

I hope you had recorded your dealership statement about primacies being all season. As very probably you will crash driving with those in winter, i wonder if you can sue some money out from dealership for outright lies that endangered you and others .
BTW, summer tires are bad not only when there is snow and/or ice. Their compound also stiffens in freezing temps and robs grip even on dry tarmac. Yes, leftover grip might still be sufficient for careful driving in low temps on dry tarmac, but freezing temps often are accompanied with hard to notice black ice patches here and there from air moisture that are hard to notice until too late.
If there is ever snow/ice/temps below 5C where you live, even if not most of time but occasionally, at very least consider all seasons. USA is big country and i get it that some may live/drive in states where winter weather never is .. winter-ish, thus no need to drive on anything but summer times, but if you live in other states or have to drive sometimes across states with real winter, don't be fool, as risk is definitely not worth it.

[Stang70Fastback]

Copy-Pasting the post I made in one of the Toyobaru Facebook groups a few years back:

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Winter is coming, and I'm starting to see the re-emergence of the same question we get every year, along with the same uneducated replies in the comments underneath. I am posting this to educate as many of you as I can, so that you can help spread the CORRECT information, and shut down any misinformation before it becomes "gospel."

Q: "Do I need snow tires to drive in the snow, or will I be fine on the stock tires?"

A: Our cars came equipped with two different tires. A few Toyobarus came equipped with Bridgestone Turanza All-Season Tires. The majority of our cars, however, came with Michelin Primacy HP Summer Tires (the "Prius tires," as they are affectionately called.) It is those of you riding on the Primacys to which this post is primarily directed.

First off, the Primacy is a SUMMER TIRE. It isn't a Michelin Pilot Super Sport, or a ZII Star Spec, but it is, nonetheless, a SUMMER TIRE. Summer tires are NOT INTENDED to be used in snow, ice, or even dry pavement below 40 degrees. At all. Ever. Don't believe me? Take a look at the Performance Ratings for the Primacy HP on TireRack's site. Notice that they don't even offer the OPTION of rating the performance of these tires in snow or ice. They are not meant for it, and they shouldn't be driven in it. EVER. End of story.

I'm repeating myself because this is something that not everyone seems to want to understand. One of the typical comments I see runs something along the lines of, "I drove through a snow storm on Primacys and I didn't have any problems. They're fine if you know how to drive." That's great. I will now make a comparative statement to demonstrate just how illogical that argument is: "I drove through a rain storm on racing slicks, and I didn't have any problems. They're fine if you know how to drive." Do you see how silly that statement sounds? It's bad logic at best. Just because you survived doing something incredibly careless, doesn't mean it's a good idea. Racing slicks are NOT meant for rain. Period. Likewise, summer tires are NOT meant for snow. Period. There is no debate to be had here. This isn't something you are allowed to have an opinion on. It is a FACT. The only reason it seems "okay" to have that viewpoint is because of the existence of all-season tires, which aren't great in the snow, but have conditioned people to "accept" poor traction in wintery conditions as a "fact of life."

So why do summer tires suck in the winter? "Summer tires have plenty of tread! They should be fine for light snow, right?" Wrong. Tread is important, but most people don't realize that the rubber compound is equally as important. Summer tires use a very stiff, hard rubber. This is great because it reduces flex in the tread blocks, and sidewalls, which provides good steering response, and also allows the tire to remain firm, and maintain grip in hot situations. However, when the temperature drops, that stiff rubber becomes VERY stiff... almost solid. So stiff, that the rubber becomes too hard to grip onto anything. They become, essentially, hockey pucks. This sounds like an exaggeration, but it isn't. In cold temperatures, they are only marginally better than the plastic wheels on the old Power Wheels you drove when you were 4.

Winter tires are made of a MUCH softer rubber compound. On a hot summer day, they almost feel like chewing gum; as though you could peel the tread off with your bare hands. This means that when the temperature drops, the rubber still stays compliant enough to actually do its job. Combine that with deeper tread blocks with lots of sipes, and you have a tire that can offer SIGNIFICANTLY more traction in the winter months.

Lastly, I want to reiterate that just because you can manage to to do something, doesn't mean it's an intelligent decision to do so. You certainly shouldn't recommend doing so to others. The "getting going" part of driving in the snow is all anyone ever seems to think about, but it's the stopping part that matters. "Well, I just leave an extra-long following distance between myself and the car ahead of me." Great. What do you do when the light turns yellow? The light that doesn't give you any more time to stop in the winter than it does in the summer? What if another idiot on summer tires slides out in front of you from a side street? Are you going to inconvenience everyone else on the road by driving everywhere at 5 MPH since your stopping distance at any higher speed is 3 blocks? Are you going to piss everyone else off on the road by taking 45 minutes to accelerate from every stop because you were too cheap to properly equip your car for the conditions?

If you are driving this car, you can afford a set of winter tires. You can get a brand new set delivered to your door, already mounted and balanced on steelies for $700 from TireRack. You can get a used set for many hundreds of dollars less than that. They are absolutely worth it. If you don't believe me, watch the video I've linked below (which also makes a good argument for why All-Season tires suck at everything.)

Winter tires provide so much more grip, that you can actually enjoy driving the car in the winter, and even have fun, rather than spend the entire time sweating bullets and managing the tiny amount of traction you have.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlYEMH10Z4s[/ame]

[flamingdrumz97]

I had the same thought as you, but the first snowstorm with these on and I got stuck for 8+ hours. Don’t even bother , just get winter tires.


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[DarkSideFRS]

get the Toyo Celsius tire.. it's a variable condition tire aka somewhere between winter and all-season tires... it's good enough for winter, and u don't need to replace the tires after winter

https://www.toyotires.com/tire/patte...ble-conditions

[soundman98]

i genuinely tried to drive with the primacies the first year in the snow. because i'm an amazing driver and everyone else is idiots.

i got stuck in 0.5" of snowfall on a shallow pitched road and was an hour late to work while my brother had to tow me home so i could take a different car. no amount of feathering the clutch or altering the gas input freed the car until the tow strap came out.

[Spuds]

Originally Posted by soundman98

i genuinely tried to drive with the primacies the first year in the snow. because i'm an amazing driver and everyone else is idiots.

i got stuck in 0.5" of snowfall on a shallow pitched road and was an hour late to work while my brother had to tow me home so i could take a different car. no amount of feathering the clutch or altering the gas input freed the car until the tow strap came out.

Lol this basically happened to me too. ... ... twice...

[soundman98]

we're all superstar drivers until we get the chance to prove ourselves wrong!

[kyto31]

Thanks for all the replies, but rereading my original question, it wasn't very clear at all. So let me explain in detail:

Basically you're not supposed to expose summer tires to cold temps, even when storing them. My understanding, is that if you do this, you can potentially compromise the integrity of the rubber and overall structure of the tire (like small cracks or warping). At the very least the cold temps will cause the rubber to compress. Rubber, like any other material, has a degree of elasticity. That's basically the ability of a material to return to it's original shape after being deformed. If it is deformed too far, it will exceed its elastic limit and not be able to return to it's normal shape/size.
(sorry for the physics lesson, just want to be clear )

Now, I'm sure these effects could be subtle enough that they wouldn't be noticed from a quick visual inspection or even from driving around, however, may cause issues in the longer term.

So to recap, I drove with the tires on in freezing temps all winter, and now driving them with temps warming up. I'm not really concerned and I'm sure they're probably fine, but just wanted to see what you all thought. Thanks!